Not just a desk job [electronics audio]

If you've ever seen a TV documentary interview with a record producer, the chances are he - or very infrequently she - will have been sitting at a mixing console. One of those things that look like a control desk at Nasa: a small fortune in blinking lights, VU meters, sliders and rotary pots. There is also a pretty good chance that Solid State Logic (SSL) built the console. In the mid- 1990s the UK-based pro-audio company had an 80 per cent global share in the large mixing desk market. Its clients work with the biggest names in rock music - the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Roxy Music, David Bowie. To complete the picture, the control room where these artists' records are mixed will be lined with acoustic panels and there will be lots of opulentlooking peach-coloured wood surfaces. There will also be a pair of Yamaha NS-10 studio monitors. The ones with the white cones.